Agri Valley

Aliano, the village in Basilicata experimenting with repopulation through culture and festivals

Aliano, a small village in Basilicata, is trying to counter depopulation through culture and the organisation of festivals. The experimentation, led by poet Franco Arminio, has led to an increase in accommodation and services in the village, but there are still challenges to be faced such as the lack of water and connections. Nevertheless, the mayor is optimistic about the future and believes that Aliano can become a development model for inland areas

by Donata Marrazzo

27 August 2024

4' min read

It is unclear where Aliano begins and ends, with the people - all together almost 20,000 people - trespassing in the nearby villages of Stigliano, Sant'Arcangelo, Gallicchio, San Brancato, amidst newly inaugurated bed and breakfasts and camping tents wherever they happen to be. Better if with a view of the gullies.

Testing of restocking

Visitors come and go. Some 'beach themselves' on old sofas placed under the town hall. The heat gives no respite, but it goes on: the Aliano gathering is to all intents and purposes a technical trial of repopulating an inland area. The poet Franco Arminio has set to work on this experiment. In Aliano, where on paper there are around 800 inhabitants but only half of them actually live, he has created the House of Landscape: a small place where, every summer, during the 'La luna e i calanchi' festival, of which Arminio is the creator and artistic director, the future of the places is discussed and shaped. "An action of trust and militancy to focus attention on villages and mountains. A middle way between politics and poetry. Because then just a festival is not enough,' Arminio explains.

Franco Arminio

At Levi's House

Newly inhabited, the town expands, multiplies accommodation and restaurants, opens cellars and oil mills to set up museums: of the present and the past. And galleries: of abstract expressionism (such as the one dedicated to Paul Russotto) and of rural civilisation. They play drums, flutes, accordions, pasture bells and Tibetan bells. In the Carlo Levi picture gallery, the Turin writer's canvases are surprising: bare trees and olive trees, self-portraits, emigrants, grieving women, bread and roses. It was in Aliano that Levi set his 'Christ stopped at Eboli': it was during his confinement that he drew inspiration. And it was in the cemetery of the small Lucanian village that he wished to be buried. His house, in an uphill alley in the historic centre, is brought back to life today thanks to a multi-vision system: here is the vegetable garden, the Baron dog, Giulia's portrait, the lit fireplaces, the paintbrushes.

The Mayor and the Poet

The mayor put his faith in the poet Luigi De Lorenzo, in his third term in office, one funding after another - regional, national, European, including the royalties that the municipality takes from the extraction of oil in Tempa Rossa, between Corleto Perticara, in the province of Potenza, and Gorgoglione, towards Matera - has renovated the town with renovations and maintenance, but also with the construction of an entire hotel village. De Lorenzo goes by memory and says that 'funding amounts to around 9 million euro. Here, however, it is still all a blossoming of projects. And the matrix is almost always cultural: four million euro, for example, are earmarked for the construction of the Teatro del Tempo, a multidisciplinary centre for the valorisation of contemporary authorial production.

Aliano, tetti

The path of the peasant witch

The moonscape of the badlands is waiting to be reorganised into paths (that of 'don Carlo', 'don Luigino', the peasant witch). The horned masks of the historical carnival, described by Levi as 'unleashed demons', will have a museum. The whole country will be reproduced on maps as a large constellation of the arts. And given the success of the festival and the great attraction of artists and intellectuals, for the next edition, the mayor plans to extend the duration of the event and increase the availability of beds: 'I have in mind the creation of a glamping, with comfort and services, for our guests who love nature,' he announces.

Aliano, tende per il festival

"The Moon and the Badlands" and temporary communities

Franco Arminio welcomes visitors, enlivens spaces, introduces guests and often duets on stage: with actor Rocco Papaleo, a total Lucanian, he lightly explores fragments of the south. With writer Andrea Di Consoli he traverses sentimental geographies. With singer-songwriter Dario Bunori he alternates verses and songs against fear: crowded on the steps of the amphitheatre and in the spaces around thousands of spectators arrived from all over Italy, some even from Spain and Northern Europe. At dawn, they go in procession through the gullies, to the sound of a harp, a drum, a guitar: temporary communities are born among the clay spires. At night, the cemetery is transformed into an intimate location: 600 people listen in silence to the reading of verses by Arminius from the collection 'Postcards from the Dead'.

Aliano, La Luna e i Calanchi

Under Levi's House

Under Levi's house, actress Lara Chiellino declaims Franco Costabile's verses accompanied by Vincenzo Mastropirro's flute. In the Calanchi auditorium, Francesca Ritrovato's 'Alienate', real life and suffered imagery of the women of the Girifalco asylum, with music by Fabio Macagnino. Andrea Melis, poet and bio-hacktivist - as he calls himself - warns everyone of the dangers of persuasive technologies, to which computers and smartphones expose us. But above all, he reminds us, one verse after another, what really makes us unique and irreproducible: 'Our human nature'. It is a piece of his poetic manifesto.

De Lorenzo, 'Culture as the engine of our economy'

For Aliano, clinging to a clay ridge overlooking the Val d'Agri, this is a real attempt at rebirth. An injection of confidence and also an economic prospect, given the unexpected profits for those in the village who run businesses and tourist facilities. But after the festival, scepticism and mistrust also return, especially from the elderly. They come to terms with many unresolved problems, the lack of water to irrigate the fields, the absence of connections, the poor health care: the general practitioner is there every other day and the doctor on duty only on holidays. However, the first citizen's optimism does not run out: 'Culture will become the engine of our economy. Soon,' promises De Lorenzo, 'we will have shuttles, new businesses and telemedicine services. The ultra-fast network is already there. Aliano will be a development model for inland areas'.